


Kids Again

by FairyChix26



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Maribat - Fandom, Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Alix uses they/them pronouns, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Bad Parent Gabriel Agreste, Canon Temporary Character Death, Canon typical child abuse, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Found Family, I will die on this hill and that's not even a big part of the fic, M/M, Multi, child neglect is child abuse, emotional abuse is still abuse, non binary alix, pov gets a little weird sometimes, romantic soulmates and platonic soulmates have different presentations, switching povs by chapter
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-03
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-15 19:15:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29813139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FairyChix26/pseuds/FairyChix26
Summary: Soulmates come in twos; At least they usually did98% of the world's population has a soulmate bond. Of those, 80% have platonic bonds. Only .2% of all soul bonds connected more than two people.Having three soulmates is exactly the kind of cosmic joke the universe would play on a True Wielder of the Ladybug Miraculous. If it gives a boy who still had a lot of life to live a second chance, well that is still in Creation's domain, now isn't it?Marinette loved the boy in her heart, and the other two links were twisted around each other in a way only romantic pairs could be. If only she could have loved him enough to save him.Jason wanted, more than anything, to protect the girl who his heart belonged to; protect her from the harness of the world, and then from what he had become.But we're getting ahead of ourselves here, let's start at the beginning.
Relationships: Dick Grayson/Adrien Agreste, Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug/Jason Todd
Comments: 54
Kudos: 114





	1. She likes to drink her coffee black

**Author's Note:**

> I will be using some foreign language in this fic. That being said: I am a white person, and I will probably make mistakes. Please reach out to me if I have done so, and I will adjust anything immediately. 
> 
> Anything that is translated will be in english at the end of the sentence in double parentheses. This used to be more common, and while I could in theory do the footnote thing, I don’t know how to set that up. Maybe one day when I am better at coding in AO3 I will come back and do that, but for now I'll be doing things this way.  
> Follow up to that: I am using an online translator, as well as articles written by native speakers, but there is still a likely chance that I have translated something wrong. Please, if you see this let me know so I can fix it.
> 
> Thank you to MiraculousPenta for being my beta telling me it's good to post.  
> Thank you to jovialJuggernaut for checking my grammar and only making fun of my a little for being bad at commas.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> apologies, to anyone who was confused without the line breaks. I just realized this morning that it didn't copy them over. I have fixed that.

The first time Jason looked into his Soulmate’s life she was happy. Whoever she was, she seemed happy. The first strong emotion that he got from her was pure bliss and a sense of major accomplishment. The first time he got to see through her eyes he was eight years old. She was rushing out the door waving goodbye to smiling parents, a thermos in one hand and a cute pink backpack in the other. He cherished this memory like no other. There were other strong emotions from the bond, most of them were similar. She was happy and seemed strong. After that, Jason tried not to let his emotions overwhelm him; he didn’t want the girl with the happy laugh and the pink backpack to see where he was. 

He knew he didn’t do as good a job as he tried. The feeling of worry in his heart that he knew came from her told him so. He could feel when she worried about him not eating enough, so he tried not to go to bed hungry too often. He could feel when she would panic because she hadn’t felt anything from him for too long. He would go and listen to the musicians playing on the streets; trying desperately to feel as happy as he could for her. 

When he had gotten stabbed defending another kid from a man with a knife, he wasn’t sure if his panic was his own or hers. He felt like he was watching someone die though, so he was pretty sure it was her panic feeding into his own pain. He made sure to take care of himself so that she didn’t think he _had_ died. 

This went on for a long time; him looking in and seeing small bits of her life and later try to send good things back as much as he could. He figured out she was from Paris when the Eiffel Tower was in so many of the small glimpses he saw. So, he stole an English to French dictionary. He then found a bookstore, he could steal from it pretty easily, that had a copy of a book filled with his favourite fairy tales in French. He learned French, then he took it as his language elective. Slowly, he started to understand what she was saying in his visions of her. She had a small number of friends, but they were pretty close. She still worried about him far too often, but he noticed that on days where she was worried she would go out of her way to be as happy as possible. It was like she was trying to make him warm from the inside. And on those days, when was cold and hungry and desperate for a safe place to sleep, he would hold on to her happiness and promise himself that he would be happy for her tomorrow.

* * *

When he became Robin he was worried about her finding out. What if Bruce made him stop being Robin? For this reason, he stayed quiet about his Soulmate. Most bonds were platonic anyways, so he just didn’t mention that his bond was romantic.

He hoped she would at least get to see happier emotions from him. He knew that she had to have seen some of where he grew up, but he wanted to believe that maybe she would now get to see these happier moments. Jason vowed to live every happy moment to its fullest. 

He hoped she got to see Alfred teaching him to cook, and him learning how to bake all her favourite pastries. He hoped she saw Dick teaching him gymnastics, seeing all the times he fell but got back up. He wanted her to see him and Dick goofing off and the times they would go sneak off behind Bruce’s back when he told them not to skip patrol to do just that and get ice cream in the suits. He hoped she saw him and Bruce sitting in the library reading, the two of them watching movies together when he was too sick to patrol. He wanted her to see that he had a family that loved him now. 

He hoped that she wouldn’t worry about him so much anymore; that he wouldn’t be a burden on her anymore.

* * *

He thought he had hidden this from his new family, but somehow Alfred always knew everything. Jason almost panicked when Alfred broached the conversation while he was teaching Jason to make macarons

“Does your Soulmate have a favourite flavor, Master Jason?”

“I- uh,” he tried to come up with a way to deny it, but knew that he would never get something past Alfred. Still he tried, “What do you mean?”

Alfred smiled, not looking away from measuring the ingredients. “Growing up, my best friend had a Soulmate that grew up in a troubled home. He told me he knew when she was in a better place because she started pouring emotions into everything she did so that he could _feel_ , as well as _see_ , that she was safe.” Alfred turned back to the cabinet looking at their ingredients. “I just thought that you seemed to be doing something similar. I apologize if I misread the situation.”

Jason stood there thinking for a moment. He looked around and listened to make sure Bruce wasn’t about to walk into the kitchen. He moved closer to Alfred so he could whisper, ”Her name is Marinette. I heard one of her friends call her Netté, though.” When Alfred didn’t stop him from talking he kept going. “She likes matcha ones best, but she always tells her mom that she likes strawberry ones because they're less work.” 

That was all that was said. They finished making the cookies and Alfred packaged them up for him to have in his room. Jason was pretty sure that Alfred knew he was hoarding food, but so long as no one stopped him and probably even if they did he would keep doing it. Living on the streets taught him that a next meal isn’t guaranteed, and even if it was unlikely he would ever go hungry under Alfred’s watchful eyes, he still wanted a back up plan if he needed to make a break for it.

* * *

The next time someone asked about her was about a year later on a stakeout in Blüdhaven with Dick. Bruce had gotten scared when Jason got hurt and wouldn’t let him patrol in Gotham until his injuries had completely healed. Jason got antsy and ran away to crash on Dick’s couch until Bruce let up on the restriction. 

Dick had just sat down next to him on the building they were on. “Hey, Little Wing”

Jason turned to him. “Yeah?”

“Do you ever try to send your soulmate messages?”

Jason’s throat closed up in terror. Dick kept talking as though he hadn’t noticed Jason tensing up and planning an escape route. “It’s just, sometimes I see what he’s seeing and I don’t know how to tell him that I want to look out for him, ya know? And his dad is kinda distant, but his mom loves him a lot. I don’t know though, because sometimes I can feel dread coming from my soul link but without any glimpses into what he’s seeing. Alfred thought maybe I have a platonic soulmate that is experiencing dread. Lately I’ve only had happy and joyful feelings so I’m worried that if I do have a platonic soulmate that maybe something bad happened to them. I have no idea how I would be able to send a message to a platonic soulmate though, so I wondered if maybe you knew?”

Jason had slowly gotten more confused while listening to his brother. He hadn’t considered the possibility of having more than one soulmate. “Wait, you mean you can have more than one Soulmate? I thought Soulmates were pairs?”

Dick shrugged. “My parents explained it being more like pieces of the same picture. Most bonds are platonic and platonic bonds are more likely to be someone who you grew up near, so you would have similar experiences with similar emotional responses. That’s why people don’t always notice them, but when you have a romantic bond that you can actually see through each other's eyes, you notice, yeah?”

Jason nodded. “So you have a romantic Soulmate, but think you also have a platonic bond?” 

Dick ran a hand through his hair staring out at the windows they were watching, “Yeah, I don’t know how to describe it though. Honestly, I’m pretty sure I have three soulmates. The third is a lot quieter though. My mom laughed once and told me maybe it wasn’t that I had three soulmates, but that my soulmates had another link to each other.”

“Does that happen?”

“I don’t think so, but the stories about that happening are more fairy tale than concrete evidence. I like to think I have three though. I hope that, whoever my platonic bond is, they have their own romantic bond they can lean on. I don’t know if there is anything I can do for them unless I figure out who they are.”

Jason scoffed and then went on the alert seeing movement in the room. “We’ve finally got company.”

Dick smiled and ran back a few steps. “Wanna see me do a flip into the window?”

“Ten bucks says you don’t break the glass and fall on the ground.”

He laughed at that. “Be ready to pay up, Little Wing. I’ll get the two gunmen, then you swing in and help me with the others.” 

He took a running start and jumped off the roof they had been on, doing a flip to keep his momentum up. He crashed through the glass rolling into a handspring, kicking the guns out of the two goons' hands. Jason followed using his grappling hook to get across to the now-broken window. 

A short fight later and they had the men all tied up. Dick called the police with the info and then they were grappling away from the scene. 

“Hey, Dick?”

“Yeah?”

“Earlier you said that you wanted to figure out who your platonic soulmate was.”

Dick landed on top of the building his apartment was in, then looked at him. “Yeah. I just want to know if I can help them.”

Jason followed him down the fire escape, “I thought that soulmates knew when they found each other; you make it seem like that’s not how it works?”

Dick walked into his room to grab clothes. “When you only have one soulmate, there is a glow when you touch each other the first time. It’s your soul telling you it’s complete, but if you have more than one you only get that if you find all the pieces of your soul.”

“Oh.” He caught the pants Dick threw at him. “Thanks for talking to me about this. I guess there was a lot I didn’t know.”

They crashed on the couch to play video games and eat leftovers. The conversation hung heavy in the air, though. Jason felt like, if he talked first, he would tell Dick everything, but, if Dick had had a romantic Soulmate this whole time, then Bruce had to know about it. 

He looked up at his brother from where he was laying with his legs over the side of the couch. “Does Bruce know you have a romantic Soulmate?”

Dick looked down at him from where he was perched on the back of the couch. “Yeah? Why?”

Jason shot Dick's character while he wasn’t paying attention, trying to make him stop looking at him like _that_. He mulled over the question while avoiding the looks Dick was still giving him during his respawn times. In a small voice he finally answered, “He didn’t make you stop being Robin?” 

That made Dick pause the game. He dropped down to sit on the cushion of the couch, leaning his head over Jason to look him in the eyes. “Jason, Alfred would never let Bruce use one of us having a Soulmate as a reason to kick us out of the suit.” 

Jason pushed him back so he could sit up. Turning to look at him, he took a deep breath. “He kicked me out of the suit for being hurt. He fired you and sent you here. Why would having a Soulmate be any different?”

Dick reached out and hugged Jason. He felt Dick’s shirt becoming wet from tears he hadn’t realized he was crying. “Oh, baby bird, no, that’s not gonna happen, and if Bruce tries it, then you have a place here. You did really good back there, I would love to have your help anytime.”

Jason sniffled and wrapped his arms around Dick. “What if he tries to make you send me back?”

Dick was still rubbing circles on his back, talking soothingly. “Bruce can’t make me do anything. My bank account has Alfred as my responsible party, and Clark is the name on the lease. If you want to stay here you can, and no one gets to take my brother away from me okay?” Jason nodded, still sniffling but getting his tears under control. “Now enough sad talk. How about I kick your ass in this game and tomorrow I’ll take you to the gym I use and help you with your flips.”

Jason laughed wholeheartedly at that. Sitting up and discreetly wiping his tears, he grabbed his controller again. “Don’t know why you keep trying. You’re not gonna win at this any more than I’m gonna be able to do a back-handspring tomorrow.”

* * *

And that was it. 

Bruce either didn’t know about his romantic Soulmate, or he really didn’t care. Jason started keeping a journal of written notes about her. He wanted to be able to find her one day, so he needed to know everything he could. 

An incomplete list of things I know about my soulmate

  * Her name is Marinette
  * Her friends also call her Netté or Mari
  * She drinks a lot of coffee, usually black. She grabs it on the way to class. Is that a french thing? I feel like I only ever see her with coffee? That can’t be right, maybe it’s from the all-nighters? Her friends have teased her about not sleeping before. Is that more often than I think?
  * She ignores her own needs to help her friends
  * She’s like a year younger than me I think.
  * Her nonna (grandmother?) calls her Marinetta or Little Fairy (could I call her Pixie?)
  * Lives in Paris
  * She has an Asian mother; Chinese? 
  * She has an Asian name, but I don’t remember it. Her parents use it but not often enough for me to write it down
  * Her father is French-Italian
  * She is in gymnastics, but can be clumsy
  * Kim, Nino, and Alix are her friends. 
  * Chloe used to be her friend. She doesn’t know what changed things
  * She likes to draw
  * She wants to be a clothing designer
  * She made me something? 
  * I couldn’t see what it was, but her mom was really proud of her accomplishment.
  * She is a really good baker
  * She likes matcha macarons best; but she never asks for them. She feels guilty about her parents making them just for her
  * She can lift a giant bag of sugar like it weighs nothing
  * She likes to help people
  * She likes pink
  * She is nice and good. At least I think so.



The list was in a small red notebook. It stayed with him all the time; that way whenever something happened, he could write down any details. He filled the other pages of the book with things he wanted to tell his Soulmate, small bits of his life that he wanted to share with her. He had a spot in his utility belt for it to be, and a pocket in his jacket that he kept it in. He had once shown Dick the list and the pages that he had written about him and Alfred. He smiled when Dick showed him his own similar notebook. Dick’s romantic Soulmate was also from Paris; they both wondered if their Soulmates knew each other. 

Jason liked to think so.


	2. He likes to keep his burner on

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Marinette’s Chinese name comes from a post that alexseanchai made. I don’t know how to get the linking thing to work so I have pasted the url of the post in the end notes of this chapter.

Marinette would always remember the first time she looked through her romantic Soulmate’s eyes. She was five years old when she started crying in the middle of the day in maternelle. Nino ran to get the teacher while she gasped, trying to form her feelings into words. Her parents came to pick her up and her maman held her while she cried. When she was able to tell them what she saw, they held her close. 

Her papa told her that her Soulmate must have been even more scared than she was, but that she could help look over him. 

Her maman said that she wasn’t responsible to be the one to save him, that the people who were responsible for this had a duty to take care of him. She also said she didn’t have to sacrifice her own life for his. 

Her maman told her that if she showed him kindness and love, the universe would make sure that they could meet one day. Marinette kept that in her heart every day. She wanted to show her soulmate that the world could be a brighter place than the dark place he lived in. She lived every happy memory to its fullest, and every night she sent a prayer into the sky; asking her guardian spirits to watch over her soulmate. 

* * *

When Marinette was nine, she woke up in the middle of the night in a panic. She saw through her soulmate’s eyes as he got stabbed, but even after that stopped, even as he passed out from the pain, she still felt emotions coming from her soulbond. She felt like she was watching someone die right in front of her. She was frozen in terror, knowing she could do nothing to change it. She didn’t go back to sleep that night, instead, she grabbed her sewing kit and started to take the pink applique flowers off her only black dress. She then went to work on making a veil. She also found the blue dress that she had worn to her great-grandfather’s funeral. She wasn’t sure what you were supposed to wear to a funeral for your soulmate’s family, but she wanted to be ready to get dressed in the morning.

When her mother came to wake her up in the morning she shifted her gaze up to her from the floor. She had sat there to write in her journal. She opened her mouth and asked her mom the important question she needed an answer to, “Maman, can you have more than one soulmate?”

______________________________

Sabine looked around her daughter’s room when she saw the dresses Marinette was sitting next to, “It does happen. What did you see Bǎobèi?” ((mandarin: baby))

Marinette shook her head, “I didn’t see it, mama. I just felt like I was watching someone really important to me die. I can still feel the link though, so it couldn’t have been my soulmate. But I didn’t see it, I just felt it... Could I have a platonic soulmate too?”

Sabine scooped her daughter up into her arms, “You could. I think it’s very possible you do.” Marinette started crying, “Shhh, it’s okay sweetheart.” She adjusted her grip on Marinette so she could move to sit them both onto her fainting couch. “Do you want to talk about it?”

She sniffled nodding, “what do you wear to mourn someone you aren’t related to?” 

“In China, you would wear a dark color to the funeral of the death of a loved one who you aren’t related to. But not black. You only wear black for your parent’s or husband’s funeral. In France, you can wear black if you want to, but any dark color is okay. If you follow your gut feeling where does your platonic soulmate live?”

Marinette furrowed her brow, “I don’t know māma, I can’t see them.”

Sabine smoothed Marinette’s hair down, “Did your heart say somewhere when I asked you?”

Marinette nodded, “America. I thought about America… but I also thought about Paris…”

She looked at her daughter in contemplation, “Meiyun, do you remember how I taught you to meditate?” Marinette nodded, “I want you to meditate with me, but I want you to focus on your soul link. Can you do that for me?”

Marinette nodded. She sat up and got into a relaxed position. Taking in a deep breath she closed her eyes. After a few moments, Sabine started talking to her, “When you breathe in I want you to gather up all your emotions, and then, as you breathe out, let them flow to the background of your mind.” 

Marinette smiled, “Like music?”

She smiled at her daughter, “Exactly like music. Let your feelings be the beat of the song, and look for the melodies of your soulmates.” She watched Marinette breathe and then start to hum. 

Sabine’s older sister had been a part of a multibond and she knew it ran in the family, but she wasn’t sure how she would be able to help her daughter. Her soulmate died when she was a girl, they were a platonic bond and she hadn’t even met them. Tom’s soulmate bond was also platonic. He had met him once and they were pen-pals, but their friendship had never gotten that close. When Marinette was born she had a spark in her eyes that Sabine knew was pointing towards a difficult journey for her daughter. When she started to see through her Soulmate’s eyes Sabine knew she was right. She looked at her little girl, so young and yet so strong. Her sister had the same strength when she was young, Sabine just hoped that her daughter wouldn’t follow the same path. When Marinette opened her eyes Sabine waited for her to talk, her daughter was young, but, when it was something important, she always tried to figure out what she was going to say before speaking. 

“There are three other melodies. So if I include my own that makes four. My song and Jay's are really close, but the other two are a little lower? They are as close to each other as ours are though.”

Sabine smiled at her, “It sounds like you have two platonic soulmates, and that they are romantic soulmates. Multibonds are rarer in the world, but they happen more often than most people think. My sister had a multibond too, she had four soulmates total. That just means that you have a lot more love to give, and a lot more love to receive.”

Marinette nodded at her, “So I could find one of my Soulmates here in Paris?”

Sabine scooped her daughter up in her arms, “You might sweetie, but unless all four of you are together you might never know.” 

Marinette tilted her head in confusion, “but why?”

Sabine smiled and booped Marinette on the nose, “soulmates have a spark when they meet each other. It’s your soul saying ‘you did it! You found my other parts!’ but that can’t happen until all the pieces of your soul are together.”

* * *

Eventually, Marinette learned how to pick out each of the distinct ‘voices’ of her soulmates. She knew when her platonic soulmates were hurting. 

Each year her soulmate from America would mourn the same loss, her soulmate from Paris would have days where they would be filled with so much sadness and loneliness, and her Soulmate would have days where he couldn’t eat or would be running for his very life. 

When her Paris bond started having the same hunger pains she got worried. She was used to the pains coming from Jason, knew exactly what they felt like and how long you went without proper nutrition before the pain kicked in. 

She started reaching out to those around her, making sure that everyone she interacted with knew she was a person they could turn to. 

She made herself known as someone who cared deeply about her friends. 

When Chloé started being mean to her she spoke only kindness. 

When Kim and Alix got into a fight she was there to hear both sides and help them see the other’s point of view. 

When Nino got overwhelmed she sat quietly by his side so he knew he wasn’t alone. 

She did everything she could for her friends because she was fighting the feeling that she could do nothing for her soulmates.

* * *

She was 11 when she learned all about the Gotham vigilantes. 

She had some memories of Jason on the streets where he hid from Batman and had heard him talk about him, but she had never seen him. 

Until she checked in Jason when he was caught in the middle of taking the tires off the batmobile. She hadn’t meant to look through his eyes, she was just very tired. When she closed her eyes for a little too long the soulbond drew her to him. She giggled when he was spooked in the middle of taking off tire number 4. She was worried when she felt his burst of fear when the vigilante placed him in the back of the batmobile. She watched him scared when he was taken to the bat-cave, heard him plead not to be taken to the cops. He sobbed telling the vigilante that he would rather die than go to the foster care system. 

“Marinette, earth to Marinette.” Alix was waving their hand in front of her face, “you want to come back to Paris?”

“Huh? Oh!” Marinette jumped back. She looked around at her trio of friends.

“Dudette, what happened?” Nino reached out to hug her, then added in a soft voice, “you were laughing and then got this look of panic on your face.”

Kim was sitting behind the two of them, with Marinette by the wall she could see that the three of them had formed a barrier of sorts. She could see him watching to make sure that no one tried to eavesdrop on their conversation. 

“It was really funny, he tried to steal the tires off the batmobile.”

Kim started to laugh at that, “no wonder you looked panicked. Did he get caught by the bat?”

Marinette bit her lip trying not to cry, nodding at Kim, “He did. He was so scared.”

That shut him up real quick, “Mari, look at me.” Kim reached out a hand, “Jason is going to be okay. You know he will, he’s been in tougher spots before.”

Alix scooched closer to her to lay against her shoulder, “not like he hasn’t gotten out of worse scrapes before. Didn’t you say he took down two guys with guns like last week?”

Marinette giggled and rubbed her eyes, “yeah, but they aren’t batman.”

Nino had been looking up any information about the vigilante he could find, “Netté, it says here that he has a strict no-killing policy and a soft spot for kids. Jason could beat the shit out of him and he still wouldn’t hurt him.”

That got a loud laugh from them.

“M. Lahiffe, do you have something you want to share with the class?”

They all snapped to attention, “No Ma’am.”

Their teacher nodded, “Then might I request that you all return to silent study time.”

_____________________________________

After school, they all ran to the bakery. It was a long-standing tradition to lay around Marinette’s living room and eat snacks while they did homework. Alix was throwing a paper ball into the air while Kim checked over their math assignment. 

“I don’t know why you have me check, it’s not like I’m the best at math.”

“You are in this group. Nino is our french lit. guy. Mari can check over English assignments. I have History, you have maths. And then we struggle with science and geography as a group.”

“Hey! I’m good at geography!” 

Alix threw their paper ball at him, “then you should have volunteered to check my geography assignment.”

Marinette interrupted the start of an argument that would become a bet that would lead to her cleaning up the mess, again. “Alix, you have to stop using so much slang in your English assignments.”

“Why? You do, I’ve seen your papers.”

“I use common slang, you’re using the slang that I’ve picked up from Jay. He uses a lot more regional slang. And you know our teacher has given you marks off for it in the past.”

“Not my fault that he didn’t understand my essay.”

Marinette rolled her eyes, “haven’t you ever heard of writing to your audience?”

Kim laughed at her, “Mari, you sound just like Nino!”

She stuck her tongue out at him, “at least I’m not the one teasing my foreign language tutor before she checks over my work.”

“You wouldn’t!” he turned on the full puppy eyes, “please Mari, you know I would fail without you.”

“Yeah, I know. Hand it over I finished Alix’s.”

They sat there for a while, each finishing their assignments and then checking over the other’s work. Quiet afternoons spent above the warm bakery always lulled them into a peaceful state. The soft sounds of writing and the speaker in the kitchen playing one of Nino’s new study playlists. Marinette always loved these moments when she felt so loved; surrounded by her best friends, able to hear drifts of the conversations on the street below. Moments like these were feelings she cherished, images that she engraved into her mind. Opening her small pink journal she started writing to Jason. She wanted to tell him everything about her life, so until she could see him in person she wrote to him. 

Nino was the first one to break the gentle silence, “Netté, why do you think he was so scared?”

Alix and Kim both looked up from where they were doing the maths homework. With all their gazes on her she knew she had to say something, “he doesn’t want to go into the foster care system.” She took a deep breath and started to doodle on the corner of her page, “he, well he knows some kids who have been in the system. It’s really corrupt in Gotham. A lot… a lot of foster care parents are bad people. They abuse their wards and get the money from the system. Older kids get it worse, a-an-and he’s 13 now. S-s-so he would ha-ve a harder time getting a good family.” 

She had started crying and was now quietly sobbing. Kim moved closer and picked her up to hold in his lap. Nino and Alix moved closer to join the group hug. 

After she had calmed down enough to talk Alix asked her, “Mar, why don’t you try to check in on him?” 

She sighed, whipping her tears away, “I tried earlier during lunch, I think he was asleep though.” She bit her lip, “I could try again maybe, but he seems calm now. What if I just worry him more?”

“It’s up to you Netté. We are here to support you, not tell you what you should do about your bond.”

She nodded, “I think I’ll wait then.”

* * *

Over the next two years, she learned a lot more about Gotham’s heroes vigilantes. Jason was the new Robin. His new brother was the first Robin, now he had a new alias Nightwing. Bruce Wayne is Batman was a huge secret that was dropped on her. One that her three closest friends knew too. They had been sworn to secrecy, but she couldn’t not tell them. 

They were her small family, and if she wasn’t going to tell her parents then she was going to tell them. Sure, his identity needed to be protected. But what harm could four people from halfway across the world do? She started collecting news clippings of Robin. Each time he helped someone and they caught him on camera. The kids around the blocks he patrolled being in awe of the kid in the bright colors who would help anyone who needed it. She got to see him splitting off from patrol to take food to a building he knew had people living in it. 

Then came the other good moments. His butler, who was more grandfather than employee, taught him how to cook. His new father, the adoption papers went through really fast, enrolled him in school. Bruce saw how much Jason liked to read and put a couple large bookcases in his room. Then bought him different books that he thought might interest him. He was trying, but things were still awkward sometimes. His brother, Richard but people called him Dick, was in the circus before becoming a Wayne. He taught Jason to use his natural dexterity to flip around attackers, telling him that a moving target was harder to hit. The robin colors made you easy to see, so you had to be fast and think on your feet. If you never stopped moving then they couldn't hit you.

Marinette asked her parents if she could continue her gymnastics classes. They were only a little surprised. She had taken a break when her soulbond had gotten to be too much, but knowing that he was safe meant she could focus on herself again. 

That started with being fast and nimble and getting herself ready for when she ran the streets with him. She spent hours redesigning the Robin suit and making herself a hero persona. She had decided on Nightingale as a name and designed her suit in black and orange. She made her design a partner to her redesign of Jason’s Robin suit. She knew they were going to be partners, so they needed to match. 

She just wished that she could be there with him now. Running the rooftops by his side, helping him, making sure he makes it home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> https://alexseanchai.tumblr.com/post/622753429199224832/bc-marinette-deserves-a-chinese-name


	3. 'Cause sugar, no, she don't got time for that

Jason loved being Robin, but only a little more than he hated it. 

The freedom, the ability to help people, having a brother to look up to and bond with...

But that all came hand in hand with the pressure to be good enough, knowing that no matter how many people he helped there were still children dying on these streets, training day in and out to try to prove to Bruce that he could live up to Dick’s legacy. 

So he kept fighting

Kept running

Kept trying

Kept running out of time

* * *

Jason trained and fought, and he ran. Always running, always half a step ahead of the bad guys, but two steps behind Dick. He couldn’t measure up. Never with the Boy Wonder. 

So he got reckless. Went headfirst into situations, stopped trying to think 12 steps ahead. A person would talk just as fast if he broke a few bones, and if he could get that information faster then maybe he could save _someone_. 

He tried to ignore the worry in Alfred’s eyes when he came in needing stitches for the fourth time that week. Avoided Dick’s questions on how he got his information to head off an arms deal. Hid his pain from Bruce when he checked in on him during debriefs. 

* * *

Jason threw his mask in the corner. He had just finished briefing Bruce on his night. Having waited for him to finally leave the cave, he limped over to the med bay. He heard the door to the house open again, assuming it was Alfred coming down he continued to dress his wounds. 

“I didn’t understand what Alfred meant when he told me to make sure you hadn’t pulled your stitches. I guess I do now.” 

Jason jerked up from the table, “Shit!” he grabbed his side where he had, indeed, torn his stitches.

“Jason, what happened?” Bruce came closer picking up the stitch kit. “When did you get this?” he sat down on the stool in front of him. Pulling Jason’s hand away to see the wound.

Jason grimaced when Bruce started to snip the broken stitches. Keeping silent except for a couple of moments of major pain. 

Bruce continued to clean out the wound and get ready to stitch it up again, “I’ll just keep asking, what happened? When did you get this?” 

Jason kept his head down, watching Bruce’s hands while he stitched him up. The slight pull at his skin when the needle went through was welcome as he could feign being in pain to avoid talking. 

“Jason, I know you gave yourself a local. I’m not stupid and you’re not that slick.” He finished the stitches and glared down at him, “Now Talk.”

Jason took a deep breath as Bruce started to put antibiotic cream on the wound and a new sterile dressing, “What’s there to say, Bruce?” Jason jumped off the table the moment Bruce was done wrapping the wound, “I ran in head first like I always do? Let my emotions get the best of me? Didn’t think anything through and almost got myself killed?” He was finally letting it all out, “What answer are you looking for? What answer would prove to you that I didn’t cause this? I took a hit because I could take it, the little girl it was meant for couldn’t.” Jason shoved past Bruce to walk up the stairs to the manor, looking back for a second he added on, “This isn’t my fault. Maybe when you send your child soldiers out you should give them better protection.”

When he got to his room he flopped into bed and screamed into the pillow. Something that he had picked up from Marinette, did actually help him to feel better. He grabbed the red notebook and started writing. Telling her about what happened, writing it out really helped. When he finished he grabbed a book from his nightstand and started to lose himself in the pages. 

A knock startled him. He wasn’t sure how long it had been but he still wasn’t ready to talk to anyone. 

“Jason, I know you’re not asleep. You don’t have to come out, but you do have to listen. I was wrong to put this on you.” Jason looked up with a little hope when Bruce said that, only for it to be crushed by his next words. “Letting you be Robin was too much. You weren’t ready, I see that now. I’m benching you. You need to take time to figure yourself out before coming back out there. Just, talk to me about it tomorrow okay?”

Bruce wasn’t even at the end of the hall by the time Jason had grabbed his emergency backpack. It had his extra suit in it, food for a few weeks, and all the cash he had stashed away. He knew that this would happen one day, but he was prepared. He would figure it all out for himself, maybe take Dick up on his offer to stay with him. He looked around and grabbed a novel from his shelf tucking it into the bag next to the extra pens he kept there. He made sure his notebook was in his pocket and then he opened the window. His room was on the third story, but he had made worse climbs before.

* * *

Dick was woken up by a loud knock at his door. He rubbed his eyes and made sure none of his gear was in eyeshot before opening the door to see who was out there. “Jay-bird?”

Jason smiled as he let him into the apartment, “Good to see you, Dick. I’m not staying long, I just need you to hold onto this for me.” 

Dick looked at him confused, “wait, what do you mean? Where are you going?”

Jason shrugged a little, “I’m not entirely sure. I’m looking for someone. Once I find her I’ll be back.” Jason stood by the table putting a letter into an envelope. He was in the middle of sealing the envelope when Dick grabbed his shoulder.

“What’s going on, Little Wing? You can tell me.” Dick was pleading with him, “I thought you were waiting to go find Marinette?”

“I’m not looking for her, yet. But since I don’t know when I’ll be back I need you to hold onto this for me. If she makes it to Gotham before me, give her this. Tell her I’m still coming for her.”

Before Dick could stop him Jason was out the door. He looked at the letter in his hands, he had written _For my Soulmate; Marinette_ on the front of it. ‘I guess I’ll look after this for you Jay. Be safe.’ He picked up his phone to call Bruce. They had both been out all week looking for Jason, at least now they knew he was alive. _‘For now’_ a stray thought chimed in. 

* * *

So maybe going on this mission alone was, indeed, a rash decision. Jason laughed at the irony of it all. Trying to prove he wasn’t reckless was what got him into this. 

“Oh? Is the birdy finally seeing the humor in this?” Joker laughed in Jason’s face. He had just finished turning on a camera and now he was holding the crowbar over him again. Swinging quickly he opened a long gash across Jason’s chest. 

Screaming in pain Jason could only think one thing, _‘please let me pass out, please let me pass out, she doesn’t deserve to see this, please whatever deity might be listening let me pass out!’_

He didn’t pass out. He wouldn’t know it until many years later, but Joker had pumped enough adrenaline into his system to keep him awake until the blood loss would make him pass out. When he finally did it was like a relief honestly. Until the sound of voices in his head woke him up. 

_‘Jaybird! Please tell me you’re there! Little wing I’m trying to get there faster, but you have to wake up. There’s a bomb, you have to get up. Jay, you have to get up now! You have to go to the door.’ _

_‘Jason, please! Please wake up. We need you, we need you to wake up. I need you!’_

_**‘You don’t know me, but please live for us. We all need to meet you one day.’** _

_‘Jason you have to get to the door.’_

_‘Jay, wake up!’ _

With all the yelling in his head, Jay was finally able to wake up and drag himself toward the door on the other side of the building. The timer on the bomb was running out. He reached up to grab the handle but found it was locked. He started to cry, seeing his end right in front of him. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I never got to love you Marinette.”

* * *

The bomb went off, Dick knew the second it happened. For the final moments of Jason’s life, it was like the soulbond was wide open. All four of them were connected in a way that he had never even heard of happening. When the bomb went off it was like having a piece of himself torn away from him. He collapsed to the ground in the plane, Bruce watching him fall to pieces. They had failed him. His soulmate was dead. His little brother was dead. He could feel the pain of his Soulmate, but that didn’t compare to the heart-wrenching grief that was overtaking their final puzzle piece. He could feel her soul shattered into tiny pieces. 

Bruce landed by the warehouse that Dick knew Jason was in. Of all the ways to find out who one of your platonic soulmates was, this was the worst. They recovered his body, carefully loading him into the plane. Dick found his notebook and put it in a pocket next to his own. He knew that Jason hadn’t shown anyone but him what was in there, and he wasn’t going to betray his brother’s trust. Then he held him, held the body of his little brother. The boy who tried to live up to unrealistic expectations, the kid who beat him at video games and then flipped into a wall the same night. Dick vowed to one day find Jason’s Soulmate. He needed to tell her about Jason, about how brave he was, about how he helped kids and read old poetry. He wanted to tell her all the good things because he knew she already knew the bad ones. He needed to wrap her into his arms and tell her all the good parts. 

None of them in the bond would ever truly heal, but it would be better to try to pick up the pieces together than apart. 

He had kept Jason’s notebook on his bookshelf in his apartment, right next to the books Jason had forgotten in his apartment each time he visited. Only a few months later, Dick was getting ready to travel to Paris, to find the remaining parts of his soulbond, when he got the news. Alfred called to tell him, there was an official travel ban on Paris. No heroes, vigilante or not, allowed into the city. Diana was enforcing it, so it would be difficult if not impossible to get past her. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I'm kinda rewriting all of this, but I hate the 'Jason might have killed that guy' argument, it's just not something I can write without being annoyed about that whole situation. So! Instead, you get reckless and without caution. 
> 
> Hope y'all are ready for Mari's reaction!


	4. He's always running with no one to keep warm

Two years she watched him run the rooftops and do his best to live up to the image that Bruce had, it wore heavy on him. 

She saw him get more reckless, and hurt more often. It was like he was running in circles, he was trying so, so hard to be better. She couldn’t even tell if he knew that’s what he was doing. So she stayed in his head as much as she could, making sure that he didn’t die on her. 

Marinette came to class with bags under her eyes. Her friends watched her up her coffee intake, she moved every day like she knew something bad was going to happen. She got quieter, more clumsy. She would be there one moment and then in Gotham the next. Kim walked next to her, made sure he was ready to catch her. Alix went with Marinette any place the boys couldn’t. They watched over her; made sure that  _ she  _ didn’t get hurt.

* * *

“Mari?” Alix had asked her in a small voice one day, “when did you sleep last?”

The four of them were lying on her floor, working on homework like they always did. Kim and Nino looked over to see her response. 

“What day is it today?” Marinette stalled for time, hoping that it hadn’t been too long. They got overprotective when she went too long with sleeping, and it wasn’t something she wanted to deal with today. Unfortunately, it looked like they weren’t going to answer until she did. She sighed loudly, “I think I got a decent amount on Thursday. Slept almost 5 hours before... waking up.”

Kim reached over to hug her, they all knew what was unsaid. She woke up in pain, scared, and hurting.”

Nino came closer as well, “Netté, today is Wednesday.” He reached out and held her hands, “go to sleep. We will watch out for you. He usually naps before patrol anyways yeah?”

She rubbed her eyes, “yeah... he does… but we still have homework to finish.”

Alix grabbed the papers that Marinette was reaching for, “and we can finish our own work then help you with yours after you nap.”

Marinette bit her lip trying to stay alert enough to protest, “you’ll fail English without me.”

Kim laughed and tapped his fist on her head, “at the rate you’re going we’ll fail with you too. Please em gái, take a nap. Just a short one will do.” ((Vietnamese: little sister))

With that, they convinced her to go lay down. The three of them looked at each other, Alix spoke up first, “what do we do if…”

“If he dies.” Nino picked up the train of thought, “I don’t know that we can do anything.”

“I swear to any of the gods listening, if he hurts her, I will kill him myself.” Kim looked at Mari. She was sleeping heavily, but he could see her start to toss and turn. “He’s already giving her nightmares.” 

“All we can do is be steady for her. She needs us to be strong, so we will be. Alix, do you think your dad will let you stay here for a while?” Nino had started planning out all of this weeks ago.

Alix nodded, “yeah I think he’s about to go to an excavation site soon anyways. My brother would be glad to not have to look after me.”

“Good. Kim, can you run interference with the teachers? This is hard enough on her, we don’t need her to have extra stress on her plate.”

“Yeah, I can take care of that.” Kim was still looking at her so he saw when she finally let out a sigh and settled down, “how do we make her sleep though?”

“I can help with that.” Sabine had climbed up to check in on then and heard the conversation taking place, “We have her with a therapist, and it will be easy enough to get her prescribed meds for her anxiety and to help her sleep. It’ll just be a matter of making sure she takes them.”

Nino nodded at her, “We can make sure she’s taking them in the morning. I have to take mine each morning and evening on a schedule as well as needed for worse times. I can help there.”

Sabine smiled at him, “thank you, Nino, that would help a lot. Alix, you can stay here as long as you want, but if it gets to be too much please let us know.” She took on a stern voice, “You shouldn’t have to bear this alone. None of you are to take on more than you can handle. I know you want to help her, but you’re all kids too. I’m not above banning you from the house if I think you are putting too much stress on yourselves.” She reached out to grasp Nino’s hand, “I mean it. I know you know very well what she is going through, but your mom and I have a deal.” 

Nino smiled back, “yes ma’am. I promise.”

Sabine stood up from where she had sat near them, “With that settled, who wants to help me bring up some food for everyone. You all should eat, and Marinette will need to eat when she wakes up.”

Kim offered to go help her. After they left Nino turned to Alix, “you have to make sure she’s taking her meds at night. She won’t want to, and she will try to hide it. But you have always known us better than we know ourselves. You have to make sure she takes them.”

Alix nodded at him grabbing his hand and giving it a squeeze, “You know I will. Found family, right?”

“Found family,” he repeated the vow.

* * *

Marinette stopped talking one day. She was getting sleep, but she still wasn’t in Paris enough. So she stopped talking. If she didn’t say anything then people noticed less when she left in the middle of a conversation. 

No one else at school noticed. Well no one but Chloé, but even she knew that this was off-limits for teasing. Chloé may have become a bitch to Marinette for no known reason, but she knew the limits on what was too far. 

Mariette went silent so Kim got louder. The three hoped that if the teachers were focused on him being a clown that they wouldn’t notice Marinette not participating in class. Kim and Alix started a ‘rivalry’, making sure that any eyes that might stray to Marinette would land back on them. Nino had Marinette sit next to him so he could take notes for her, and nudge her if a teacher was looking at her. He also had the worst job, making her actually take her anxiety meds. Alix and Kim played distraction, Nino played mother hen. 

Marinette from a year ago would still have complained. She would have reminded them that she was a big girl and she could take care of herself. This wasn’t Marinette from a year ago, this was their best friend so scared for her soulmate’s life that she couldn’t take her eyes off of him.

* * *

Then something unexpected happened. 

Marinette spoke up during their study session unprompted for the first time in weeks, “He’s not Robin anymore.”

Alix sharply looked up from where they had been laying, “What?”

They all hesitated, waiting for Marinette to continue, “Bruce saw his stitches, he... well he blamed Jason.” She scoffed at the thought, “like the asshole didn’t drive him into his recklessness.” 

“Netté, what happens now?” Nino was always the first one to speak up.

“Bruce said that he was wrong, that he shouldn’t have trusted Jason as Robin. He ran away. He’s stronger now, so being on the streets isn’t as dangerous. But he’s back out there. He went to one of his old hideouts. I don’t know what he’s doing next…” she trailed off and they all waited for her next thought. 

The boys had both moved closer, Alix was still laying on their back looking up at Marinette. They all knew that when her thinking face came out they needed to wait for her to speak up. 

She took a deep breath, “I need you guys to help me get him here. I know it’s a lot to ask, and I totally understand if you can’t help me, but it’s just-“

“How are we going to do that?” Kim asked her, cutting her off. They were all willing to do whatever it took to make Marinette smile again. 

She stared at him for a moment, her mouth in a perfect O, “you’ll really help?”

Alix nudged her leg, “found family right?”

Marinette smiled at that, “yeah, found family.”

She laid out her plan. It would take them all because it involved smuggling Marinette to Gotham, and her parents would notice if she started acting unusually in front of them. 

It only took a week to get things together. Alix had convinced their dad that they were looking into a historical artifact in class and wanted to prove their teacher wrong so they needed to go to America with Marinette as a witness. He bought the story easily, believing Alix when they told him they needed to take Marinette specifically because she knew the city better. Reminding him that her soulmate grew up there. So with two plane tickets, the plan was finally in motion. Kim had been bringing his gym bag empty to the group study sessions so that Mari could pack clothes in it. Nino had a suitcase that he had smuggled out when his parents weren’t home. All of it was slowly collected at Alix’s house. Since their dad was still out of town they only had to drop home to take care of their plants, so it made it a really easy place to keep things. 

Then it took another week for their departure date. For the entire two weeks, Marinette had been so focused on going to Gotham that she didn’t notice that Jason had been blocking her. Later she would know that he didn’t even realize he was doing it. 

They were at school the day before they would be on their way to Gotham when Mari checked in on Jason, making sure that she could find him. Hoping that he was in a place that she would easily be able to find him. He wasn’t. He wasn’t even in Gotham. He was in a desert, with a woman. She looked a little like Jason, but his mom had died… and this wasn’t Catherine.

Marinette looked up at Kim with fear in her eyes, “Something is wrong,” she said quietly. With Alix’s hearing, Kim’s ability to read lips, and Nino sitting next to her it was easy to be sure that they all knew something was happening. 

Kim acted fast, shooting a rubber band at Chloé made her stand up and start yelling. That provided enough distraction for Alix to get over to Marinette’s other side. With Nino and Alix surrounding her, and Kim playing distraction she was able to completely follow Jason. It wasn’t good, he was with the woman. He called her mom, guess that explained why he wasn’t in Gotham. When Joker appeared Marinette gasped. 

_____________________________________

She was loud enough that Rose and Juleka looked over at her. Alix shielded Marinette’s body as much as they could, trying to make sure that no one could see her face. The terror on it shouldn’t be seen by anyone else. They took care of each other, and Marinette would be mortified if she found out someone else knew what she was going through. But not even with the combined efforts of all three of their strengths could they keep the attention off of her when the screaming started. 

It was like listening to a horror movie. Marinette’s screams ripped through the classroom. If you asked anyone to describe it they would tell you it was like being in a room that was filled with terror. 

“Everyone get out!!” Chloé yelled loudly. Alix looked up at her in surprise, not expecting Chloé of all people to help. Between Chloé and Kim, they got the classroom cleared in less than a minute. “I’m gonna stand outside the door so no one comes in. Just, take care of her yeah?” with that she walked out of the room and closed the door. They could see her shadow still there. True to her word no one came into the classroom. Unfortunately, everyone in their hall could hear the screams. 

“Netté, please. You have to listen to my voice. You have to come back, come back to Paris. You don’t want to see this. Please come back to us.” Alix finally clued back into Nino’s voice. He was trying to get her to come back, but it didn’t seem to be working. 

____________________________

Marinette wasn’t listening to Nino, she was caught in this moment. Watching Joker beat Jason, his blood spilling out on the floor. Then something happened that opened everything. Her mother had once told her that some soulmates could talk to each other in times of crisis, and this would count as one. 

She could hear Jason’s voice,  _ ‘please let me pass out, please let me pass out, she doesn’t deserve to see this, please whatever deity might be listening let me pass out!’ _

Then she heard others in the link,  _ ‘Jaybird! Please tell me you’re there! Little wing I’m trying to get there faster, but you have to wake up. There’s a bomb, you have to get up. Jay, you have to get up now! You have to go to the door.’  _

“Jason, please! Please wake up. We need you, we need you to wake up. I need you!” Marinette didn’t realize she had spoken out loud, but she would feel that her friends were all holding her. 

**‘You don’t really know me, but please live for us. We all need to meet you one day.’**

“Jason you have to get to the door.” She was sobbing now.

_ ‘Jay, wake up!’ _

He started moving, crawling towards the door. For a moment she had hope that he would make it. She could feel everyone pleading with the gods to just get him out of there alive. Then he tried the door, it was locked. He didn’t have enough strength or time to get out of there,  _ ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry I never got to love you Marinette.’ _

If she hadn’t already been in Kim’s lap she would have fallen to the ground. All the energy in her body was gone. It was like a huge chunk of her had been ripped out. 

“Mari, can you hear us?” she heard Alix’s soft voice.

“Netté, we need you to talk to us.”

Her sobs had turned into a hysterical laugh, “he’s dead!” She looked at Nino, still crying but becoming worse by the moment, “the fucking clown killed him!” 

Kim was running his hands through Marinette’s hair, all three of them waited for her to break back down. They had gone through it with Nino, they would be just as steady for Mari. 

After her laughing turned back to sobs Kim wrapped his arms around her again. Holding her tight, “we’re here for you em gái. We’re here.”

“He’s dead… Jay’s dead…” she sniffled turning to press her face into Kim’s chest, “and his last thought was of me.” 

Nino and Alix had moved in and were hugging her now too. “Netté, I promise, it gets easier.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alt title for the chapter: You kill a boy 2.0 final remix


	5. Leaves her desires at the welcome mat, when she walks in

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Deviating from the normal format here, Marinette is gonna get a couple of chapters. Because Jason is, well, dead
> 
> Author’s note: I used the last name of Tikki’s original voice actress, Marie Nonnenmacher, for the art teacher’s name since they haven't given him one (as far as I can find)

Marinette didn’t go back to school for the rest of the term. The school originally let her out for two weeks, but when she still wasn’t speaking Alix talked to Chloé. She made a huge deal about how losing a soulmate is like losing a part of yourself and that there were only two months left of school anyways. Besides, it was ridiculous for the teacher to think that Chloé would be willing to come into the school if  _ Dupain-Cheng _ was there. 

Her exact words were something like ‘I’m not coming to class if that banshee is, and my daddy would be very upset if you let  _ my _ education fall back because of  _ Dupain-Cheng’s _ little issue.’ 

A lot of the class was shocked at how callous she was being, but Alix knew that she was really helping, in her own way. Nino was upset until Kim pointed out that it was a lot like what he did for Marinette, so why would they be upset when Chloé was protecting her the same way they all did.

* * *

When school started back up Marinette was coming back. Since a lot of her class would be the same people who she was with last year she had helped her parents make macarons to pass out. It wouldn’t erase their memories of her breakdown, but maybe it would help to convince them she was doing okay now. 

“Is Nino coming to walk you to school?” Her mom asked as she was finishing getting ready. 

“Yeah, either him or Kim. Alix wanted to but they had to go in early for something with the art club.” 

Her mom raised an eyebrow at that, “I thought you were in the art club?”

“I am, and I still will be. M. Nonnenmacher told me to take my time and that I could come back when I was ready.” she smiled at her mom, the false smile she had been working on during the summer holiday, “it’ll be a good year. Nino told me it’s going to get easier and he was right, it is getting easier.”

Her mom looked like she was going to say something but was interrupted by a knock on the door, “Mari! You ready?”

Marinette laughed when she opened the door to see Kim trying to stand in front of Nino, “what are you two doing?”

“Nino got to hang out with you aaaallll day yesterday, so it’s my turn to get quality Mari time.” Kim scooped her up into a big hug, “I wanted to make sure you were really ready.” he whispered to her. 

She laughed and smiled as he put her down, “it’s gonna be a good year.” They both knew the smile was fake, and the optimism was forced, but he was willing to let it go for now. 

She was trying to be strong but could see that they all thought that one wrong word would break her. 

“Alright kids, you don’t want to be late on your first day back.” her mom was trying to bring normalcy back, the way Marinette said she wanted. 

“See you, Mrs. Cheng!” Kim waved exuberantly. 

“You should probably carry the macaroons, Nino.” She handed him the box and pointed to the little pocket on the side of Marinette’s bag with the red cross on it. Nino nodded, confirming that Marinette had told him that she added it. 

The walk to school was pretty typical, Kim and Nino joking around trying to make her laugh. She went through the motions of being happy and laughing at their antics, repeating in her mind,  _ ‘it’ll get easier. It’ll get easier. It  _ will _ get easier.’ _

When an old man in a Hawaiian shirt stumbled in the road falling in front of an oncoming car she didn’t hesitate to run into the street and get him out of the way. 

“Thank you, Miss. I didn’t expect the crack in the crosswalk.” He waved to her as he went along his way.

“Of course Sir, be careful.” She waved back and looked at Nino and Kim.

“Mari, that was stupid. Are you okay?” Kim was checking her over, she knew it was very likely that he had noticed the car side mirror clip her as she moved out of the way.

“Netté, please don’t do that to us again.” Nino looked pale as he slowly sat down on the sidewalk, “I need you to be safe okay?”

“I couldn’t let him die. I couldn’t watch someone else die and do nothing about it.” The adrenaline of saving someone, making sure that not another person died in front of her, it was enough to make her determined. Things  _ would _ get better, even if she had to take risks to make them better.

* * *

Walking into class there was a new girl, said new girl was sitting where Chloé usually sat. Marinette and Nino took up their spot one row from the front. When their teacher suggested that Nino sits in the front row Marinette stood to go with him.

“Dupain-Cheng, you are not sitting there! Adrien will be sitting there when he gets here.” 

Marinette rolled her eyes at Chloé, “Chloé I always sit by Nino, your friend can sit somewhere else.” 

“Marinette I think it’s a good idea for our new student to also sit upfront, why don’t you go sit with Alya? She just moved here and could use a friend.” 

Nino squeezed her hand and then nodded to where Alix had just moved seats to be behind the other set of front seats, “yes Miss Bustier.” 

She smiled at the new girl who introduced herself, “Hi I’m Alya.”

“I’m Marinette. It’s nice to meet you. Oh!” she turned back to Nino who was already holding out the box, “Miss Bustier can I pass out macaroons? My parents sent them with me this morning.”

“Of course Marinette.” 

“Here, I hope you like it!” Marinette passed out the first one to her, hopefully, new friend. 

She walked around giving cookies to the others in her class. She could still see the hesitation in their eyes, the worry that she might break down again. She did her best to smile and hopefully convey to them that she was better now. That things were going to be okay.

* * *

When Chloé teased Ivan until he became a giant monster Marinette barely batted an eye. Her life was filled with weirdness, and this was something that should have been expected at this point. 

She calmly packed her bag and took a deep breath. Things were changing for sure, but she didn’t know if it was for good. 

“Oh my gosh! A real Supervillain!” Alya’s eyes were lit up at the possibility. Grabbing her new friend’s hand, the girl started to quickly run down the stairs, “I have to go film this!”

“What? That’s not safe!” Marinette tore her arm out of her hand, “we should get home and stay safe. We don’t know what he can do yet.”

“Oh come on girl! Don’t you know? Where there’s a Supervillain there will be a Superhero to follow!” Alya already had her phone out, “if you don’t want to come with that’s okay, I’m going to get this on film though!” she yelled back over her shoulder as she started down the stairs again. 

“Great, I make a new friend and she’s going to get herself killed.” Marinette huffed, then yelped when someone picked her up, “what the hell?” she hit her fists against what she now realized was Kim’s back, “Let me down from here. I can walk!”

“Oh shush, you know if we don’t get you home fast that your parents will totally freak out.” Alix came out of nowhere on her skates, “besides Kim is faster than Nino, and I’m still not totally stable on my skates if I pick you up like that.” 

Marinette started to pout, “I could have walked on my own two feet.” 

Kim laughed turning them both around in a circle, “now where’s the fun in that?”

As the three walked into the bakery her dad sighed in relief, “Sabine, they’re here! Kim just carried her through the door!” 

Marinette’s mom came out of the back, Marinette saw her putting away her phone, “Is Nino with you all?” 

“I’m here Mrs. Cheng.” Nino walked into the bakery then gave a look towards the stairs.

“Maman, can we go upstairs now?”

“Go ahead. I’m calling all of your parents so they don’t worry. Do you know if Chris made it home?”

“Mom told us to come here and that she was getting him. So no need to call her.” Nino answered her question.

“I sent my dad a text Mrs. C, he told me to stay here. My brother was already at the museum when it started.” Alix added in.

“Go ahead upstairs then.”

* * *

Walking into Marinette’s room was weird. Something felt off. When she looked around the room her eyes were drawn to the source of the feeling. Ancient magic, something out of the depths of history. She immediately went into what she called “Robin Mode”, she had watched Jason and Bruce access and break down a situation so many times she knew how to do the same.

“Nino, guard the trap door. Alix, you’re on the main window. Kim, guard the skylight.” 

They all snapped into action, no one questioning it. Things had already gotten weird, and Marinette was the only one who at least knew some of what to do.

“Netté, what do you think it is?” Nino asked from where he was crouched over the trap door.

“It’s powerful magic. Reminds me of the time Jason was near Green Lantern.”

“How do we know it’s safe?” Alix was trying to look at the box while still manning their post by the window. 

“We won’t until I open it. It was left for me, so let’s see what it is.”

All three of them covered their eyes at the bright light emitted when Marinette opened the box, “hi! My name is- oh no.”

A small bug-like being had flown out of the box leaving a pair of earrings behind. They looked around at the others with slight panic on her face, “oh no, no no no no no!”

They were flying around in a circle until landing on the desk and covering their eyes, “your identity is supposed to be secret. No one can know. Now master fu is going to take me away and give me to someone who isn’t a true creation soul. But you’re my chosen!” 

“Um, excuse me. Flying bug creature?” Marinette reached a hand out near the creature, “it wouldn’t have mattered if you were supposed to be secret. I would have told these three anyways. We don’t keep secrets from each other.”

“Oh no, that’s not good either… but you’re my true holder…” the creature shook herself, “no this is fine. I’m a fucking goddess, Fu can’t make me do anything now that he doesn’t have my miraculous.” She took a deep breath, “okay, let’s start again. Hi, my name is Tikki. I’m the goddess of good luck and creation, and you, Marinette Meiyun Dupain-Cheng, are my true chosen. You have a soul that can truly wield the powers of creation and luck, and I need you to help me to take down hawkmoth and get my lost friends back. You, with the help of your partner, the weirder of the Black Cat miraculous, can do this. But you have to accept.” 

Marinette tilted her head, her friends watched her weigh her options, “if I don’t…”  The kawmi Tikki, looked on nervously waiting for her to continue, “if I don’t accept, will people get hurt?” 

Marinette watched Tikki compose her answer in her head, “I don’t know, I also don’t know that if you do accept that people won’t get hurt. Fluff might be able to tell us what happens if you don’t. But they haven’t been let out of the box yet and I can only see the possibilities of what will be created, not all the possible outcomes of choices. So yes there is a chance that people will get hurt if you don’t accept. And we probably won’t find another person who can truly wield my powers so I won’t know what their limitations might be.” She took a pause here, “but, if you can’t accept, or even if you just don’t want this. It’s okay. The burden shouldn’t be placed on children, but Master Fu still holds onto the old ways and creation souls are truly rare.” 

“Mari, team meeting?” Now that the threat was known Kim had walked closer to her, “We should discuss this. You threw yourself into traffic this morning. This feels a lot like that.” 

She answered him while still staring at Tikki, “Kim, if I can help people I need to. You know how important this is. And I need to do this. I need to know that I won’t always be a helpless bystander.” 

“Netté, we got your back.” Nino had also moved closer and reached out to hug her, “we just also need to know you’re safe.”

“Her suit will be indestructible. Akumas might be able to toss her around, and sometimes she will get hurt, but one of my powers is the miraculous cure, and it will fix any problems and fix all damage to people and buildings.”

“See guys, I’ll be fine. Now let me do this.” Marinette put in the earrings. They turned to simple black circles once they were in. “How do I transform?” 

“You’ll say Tikki, Spots On. To detransform its Spots Off. You have two powers. Lucky Charm will help you to turn the tide of battle in your favor and the miraculous cure will fix all the damage after the fight. You have to catch the butterfly at the end, that’s the Akuma. Catch it and it will purify, after that use the cure.”

Marinette nodded, “okay, let’s do this. Tikki, Spots On!”

* * *

Kim, Nino, and Alix watched the stream of the fight on Marinette’s computer. Holding their breath each time she was hit. She made it out alive though, she purified the butterfly, and then she fixed the city. Kim noticed her slight limp in the last moments before the cure was cast. He was pleased to see that she was walking completely normally afterward. 

“You know what this means.” Nino said softly to them, “she’s going to need us more now than ever. Tikki knows more than she was telling us, and from the sounds of it we have more than just two of her friends to free.”

“You caught it too?” Kim responded, “the part of Fu trying to control her.”

“And the fact that he has at least one other tiny god in a box?” Alix added in.

“So we’re in agreement?” 

“Found family means that we protect our own.”

“And if Mari has accepted Tikki into the family...”

“...then we protect her people too.”

The three were in a quick agreement, now it was just a matter of biding their time. No one should feel like they could be taken away at any moment, and in their short interaction with her, they knew that’s how Tikki felt. 

__________________________________

Alix noticed the new presence in the room first, snapping their head up to look at Marinette’s bed, “who are you?”

“Ha! I told them I was the one to notice first, Kim swore he was the one who caught me.” The person did a flip off of Marinette’s bed, their bunny transformation dropping in midair, “Bunnyx is my other name, but don’t you recognize yourself mini-me?” 

Alix watched as their older self threw a piece of carrot cake into the air for another kawmi, “how are you here?”

“Mini-me, meet Fluff, Fluff you know mini-me.” Fluff turned around and then flew into Alix’s face.

“Oh my god!!!! You already feel like the timestream!! We’ve had so much fun together! And you’re going to do so many cool things. Though this thing that we are doing, going to do, experiencing, isn’t really a good thing-”

“Fluff, you’re talking in circles. Let me take it from here.” they smiled, “Okay, so I have words of advice before anything more happens. First; mini-me, you need to be ready to meet younger me/older you here soonish, we need help with our miraculous. Little shell,” they turned to look at Nino, “you feel that you need to keep protecting everyone, but you also need to look out for yourself. You are the one who is going to keep this family together. They fall apart if you aren’t there as a voice of reason, you have to take care of yourself and not sacrifice yourself to protect them.” Turning to Kim now, “alright, now kid chaos, use those big brother instincts to lead her. She is going to fight against breaking the rules, you are the King at rule-breaking and that’s going to make this all happen a lot faster.”

They turned back to Alix, “now I have a message just for you. We’re going to the balcony. Boys, I know that we share everything, but once I start time traveling there are things I  _ can’t _ tell anyone. Not even my past and future selves,” they were climbing up to the balcony hatch, “I wish it wasn’t like this, but the timestream is so volatile.  _ Please _ , don’t ask me about it. I hate having to tell you all no, and I hate having to hide it. So  _ please _ , I am begging you, don’t ask me.”

The boys heard the hurt in older Alix’s voice. Someone will hurt their sibling, and they weren’t going to be the ones to do so. 

The Alix’s both stood on the balcony, watching Ladybug and Chat Noir race across the rooftops following the purified butterfly, “I wish it had been that easy.” 

Turning to face their younger self they started what they knew was the hardest conversation any of the versions of themselves would ever have. 

“mini-me, Mari is going to ask us the hardest thing we’ve ever had to say no to. But you have to say no. I can’t tell you why, and right now I can’t even tell you what. But when we get Fluff, when everything starts to go well, Mari is going to ask us to do something. You have to say no, we all have had to say no. I’ve seen the way the timeline where we say yes plays out. It’s  _ bad, _ very very bad. One day you will see it too, and you will understand why we decided that I had to come to see you at this exact moment.”

Alix nodded at their older self, “It’s what I think it is isn’t it?” 

“I always knew I was the smartest of the family. Yeah, you're thinking right. The whole time travel powers probably gave it away…” they looked back at where Ladybug was headed back home, “just... she still loves us afterward, but she will be mad for a while. She gets over it, things really do change, and it’s going to be so much more fun to let things happen the way they are supposed to.” They turned around grabbing their pocket watch, “Fluff, Clockwise. Burrow.”

Bunnyx looked back over their shoulder, “When you get your soul link connected, things get even more fun.”

Alix called after their future self as they jumped into the portal, “Wait! My WHAT????” Screaming in frustration when they realized that they weren’t getting an answer, Alix stomped down into Marinette’s room, “Am I always that frustrating???”

Kim started laughing, “oh my god I can’t believe you’re mad at yourself.” 

“Yeah! Well! You would be mad too if future you showed up and told you that you actually Do have a soulmate!” 

That shut him up, “Wait what?” 

“Yeah, apparently the link isn’t connected? I don’t know, I think it’s a time travel thing.” They fell back onto Marinette’s bed, “What if it isn’t a platonic bond? I’m aromantic for crying out loud!”

“You know that’s not how it works Alix.” Marinette laughed at them as she dropped her transformation, “oh my gods that was exhilarating! I felt alive!” 

She collapsed on top of Kim letting her head fall onto Nino’s lap, “guys, I think this is really correct. I am  _ supposed _ to be Ladybug.” She looked up at Nino, “I can make a difference now, I really can. Maybe I can save people, make sure no one has to feel like us again. No one has to feel as helpless as we did.” She smiled and grabbed his hand, squeezing it in her own, “found family, right?”

He smiled back, “Found family.” 

“So! Let’s get to work, we have some homework and I don’t want to fall behind. I’m gonna go grab some snacks, anyone have any requests?” Marinette was genuinely smiling for the first time in months, and none of them wanted to break that.

Tikki put in her request for cookies, and Alix seconded that with a request for snickerdoodles and then Marinette was headed downstairs.

* * *

Nino turned to the Kawmi, “Tikki, is Master Fu good for you?” the goddess started to answer right away and Nino held up a finger, “before you answer, I mean actually good  _ for _ you. The question isn’t ‘does he protect you’ or ‘does he think he’s doing what’s best’ it’s ‘is he good for you?’”

The three of them watched her actually think about it, “he is doing what he thinks is best for us, but no, he isn’t good  _ for _ us.”

“That’s what we thought.” Nino took a deep breath, “we can get you out of there. All of you. It won’t be the first time we have gotten someone out of an abusive caretaker situation.”

Tikki looked at them, really looked at them for the first time. As the first of the Kawmi she understood the other kawmi better than any of the others. Except for Plagg, but he was always the exception wasn’t he. She looked at her chosen’s friends and saw them for who they really were. The timestream was all over Alix, Kim held too much mischief to not belong to Xuppu, and Nino was already a better turtle than Fu who was just using Wayzz to convince himself that he’s doing what’s best. This was it, the team was finally coming together again, her bug had found so many of them already. 

“Do you really think you can get them out?” she finally asked in a small voice. 

Marinette walked back in, “who are we getting out?”

Kim was the one to answer her, “Tikki’s family.”

She nodded, “well, then I guess we have our work cut out for us.” 

Tikki blinked twice at that, “wait, what? You’re just accepting that?”

Marinette shrugged, “we stole Kim with less information, if you say we need to get your family then we’ll go get them.”

* * *

They started planning and getting ready to steal a group of pocket gods. Unfortunately, school still existed and they did need to focus on passing classes too. 

The second day of school was memorable. Marinette’s new friend Alya helped her steal the seat behind Nino so that they could more easily pass notes, and they met a new friend. Tikki didn’t realize that her chosen had already been exposed to magic, and the instant connection to Adrien was a curveball she wasn’t expecting. When Marinette asked Tikki if she could recognize people who have the potential to use a miraculous Tikki knew that getting her friends out would be a lot easier than she thought. Her bug was right, her team was gathering around her and it was a lot more impressive than she even knew.

Alya didn’t realize it yet but she was already weaving new worlds within her words. Chloé was a bully, but she was still, in her own way, fiercely protective of who she saw as her hive. There were so many people already around her bug that were true souls, and the probability of it all was impossible, but she guessed that’s what happens when the world is so out of balance that a true Ladybug soul has to be born into it.

Something much bigger than Hawkmoth was happening in this city; his becoming active was really just a catalyst for this group to come together. 

Big changes were going to happen, and the world was about to see a new dawn. Tikki was vibrating with excitement!


End file.
